Baby City by Freida McFadden & Kelley Stoddard

Author:Freida McFadden & Kelley Stoddard [McFadden, Freida]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hollywood Upstairs Publishing
Published: 2015-04-25T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24

Dr. Shepherd’s our attending today and she’s not pleased with me right now. As we talk on the phone, I can almost feel her irritation.

First, I admitted Ms. Ingram with three unsupervised children in her care. That’s bad enough.

Second, she seems flabbergasted when I tell her that Ms. Ingram has not permitted us to monitor her pregnancy in any way.

“So you don’t even know if the fetus is still alive?” Dr. Shepherd asks incredulously.

“No,” I admit. “She won’t let me check.”

Dr. Shepherd sighs her “if you want to do something right, you’ve got to do it yourself” sigh. I’ve disappointed her yet again.

“I’ll be down in a few minutes,” she says.

Dr. Shepherd trusts us about as far as she can throw us. Actually, she could probably throw us pretty far. So she probably trusts us less than she could throw us.

About five minutes later, Dr. Shepherd is striding onto the ward. As usual, she’s wearing heels, despite the likelihood that she may have to go into the OR today and also the fact that she’s about a million feet tall even without the heels. With the heels on, I have to really crane my neck to look up at her.

“Where is Ms. Ingram?” Dr. Shepherd asks.

I point in the direction of the room where Ms. Ingram is staying. My heart sinks when I see that the three little monsters are still in the room with her. Moreover, the nurse must have given them cups filled with ice, because there is ice literally over every inch of the floor and every surface of the room. I have to walk carefully to avoid slipping and Caroline is holding onto furniture. Dr. Shepherd with her heels is likely in mortal peril.

Ms. Ingram gets that suspicious look on her face as soon as she sees the new visitor to the room.

“Who are you?” she asks.

“My name is Dr. Shepherd,” she says in a voice that makes you feel like everything is under complete control. Dr. Shepherd is nowhere near as terrifying to patients as she is to us. “I’m the attending on Labor and Delivery today.”

Dr. Shepherd pulls a Doppler machine out of her white coat. I hold my breath, expecting Ms. Ingram to protest. But to my complete surprise, she doesn’t. I guess when you command the kind of authority that Dr. Shepherd has, everyone does what you want. Even the psychotic patients.

I watch as Dr. Shepherd positions the Doppler over Ms. Ingram’s belly. Caroline is watching also, her blue eyes as wide as saucers. Dr. Shepherd adjusts the sensor, searching all over the uterus, in every possible location. Finally, she shuts off the machine.

“No heartbeat,” she announces. “I’m sorry.”

I’m expecting Ms. Ingram to say something about alien babies, but instead she just nods and says, “Thank you.”

Maybe somebody slipped her some lithium since I last saw her.

“I think,” Dr. Shepherd says to Ms. Ingram, “the best thing to do at this time is to surgically remove the fetus from your uterus. If we don’t do that, you’re at risk for infection.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.